FILE - In this May 14, 2013, file photo, the Department of Justice headquarters building in Washington is photographed early in the morning. The federal government censored, withheld or said it couldn’t find records sought by citizens, journalists and others more often last year than at any point in the past decade, according to an Associated Press analysis of new data. The highest number of requests went to the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture, along with the National Archives and Records Administration and Veterans Administration. less

FILE - In this May 14, 2013, file photo, the Department of Justice headquarters building in Washington is photographed early in the morning. The federal government censored, withheld or said it couldn’t find ... more

Photo: J. David Ake, AP

Image 2 of 34 |
Probes into Russia, Trump campaign

An FBI investigation and congressional probes into the Trump campaign and contacts with Russia continue to shadow the administration, each new development a focus of White House press briefings and attention on Capitol Hill. President Donald Trump has dismissed the story as "fake news" and raised allegations of politically inspired spying by the Obama administration, but the investigations show no sign of abating anytime soon. Here's a look at some key details less

An FBI investigation and congressional probes into the Trump campaign and contacts with Russia continue to shadow the administration, each new development a focus of White House press briefings and attention on ... more

Paul Manafort and Richard Gates were criminally indicted on 12 counts, including money laundering, violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, conspiracy against the U.S., and failure to report foreign bank accounts to the U.S. government.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for hours in the special counsel's Russia investigation, the Justice Department said, as prosecutors moved closer to a possible interview with President Donald Trump about whether he took steps to obstruct an FBI probe into contacts between Russia and his 2016 campaign. The interview with Sessions in January made him the highest-ranking Trump administration official, and first Cabinet member, known to have submitted to questioning. It came as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates whether Trump's actions in office, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey, constitute improper efforts to stymie the FBI investigation.

The same day former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was called to testify behind closed doors for the House investigation, the New York Times reported that he was subpoenaed by Mueller to testify before a grand jury.

On Jan. 8, The Washington Post reported that Mueller spoke with Trump's attorney's indicating that he would likely seek to interview the president as part of his investigation. Later, in a news conference with the prime minister of Norway, President Tump told a reporter that an interview out not be necessary because "there is no collusion."

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to lying to the FBI, becoming the first Trump White House official to face criminal charges and admit guilt so far in the wide-ranging election investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Flynn also agreed to cooperate with Mueller's probe, which focuses on Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible coordination between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign aimed at sending the Republican businessman to the White House.

Papadopoulos pleads guilty to making false statements to the FBI, as part of apparent agreement to cooperate with Mueller's investigation. Mueller files 12 count criminal indictments against Manafort and Gates.

July 2017: FBI agents conducted a raid at former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's home in Alexandria, Virginia. Papadopoulos arrested by FBI at Dulles International Airport.

July 2017: FBI agents conducted a raid at former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's home in Alexandria, Virginia. Papadopoulos arrested by FBI at Dulles International Airport.

Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Image 15 of 34

Image 16 of 34

June 2017: Manafort files paperwork with the Justice Department retroactively disclosing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that his firm received more than $17 million working for the government of Ukraine between 2012 and 2014. The Washington Post reports that Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice.

June 2017: Manafort files paperwork with the Justice Department retroactively disclosing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that his firm received more than $17 million working for the government of

May 2017: Trump fires Comey. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is appointed as special counsel to take over the probe.

May 2017: Trump fires Comey. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is appointed as special counsel to take over the probe.

Photo: Jon Elswick, STF / Associated Press

Image 18 of 34

January 2017: FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, briefs Trump on contents of unverified dossier that contains salacious allegations about him and his campaign. Trump inaugurated as 45th President of the United States. Papadopoulos interviewed by the FBI about his contacts with Russians.

January 2017: FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, briefs Trump on contents of unverified dossier that contains

The New York Times reports that Manafort's name appears on a secret list of payments made by the Yanukovych regime. Manafort resigns from Trump campaign the day after The Associated Press reports he failed to register as a foreign agent after arranging a covert lobbying campaign in the United States on behalf of the Ukrainian Party of Regions.

July 2016: Trump becomes the Republican nominee for president at the party's convention in Cleveland, Ohio. FBI opens investigation into Russian government's attempt to influence the election, including whether members of Trump's campaign are involved.

July 2016: Trump becomes the Republican nominee for president at the party's convention in Cleveland, Ohio. FBI opens investigation into Russian government's attempt to influence the election, including whether

June 2016: Manafort attends meeting at Trump Tower in New York with Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya (above), who promised to provide the Trump campaign damaging information about Clinton. Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner are also in the meeting. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says his website will publish a batch of Clinton emails.

June 2016: Manafort attends meeting at Trump Tower in New York with Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya (above), who promised to provide the Trump campaign damaging information about Clinton. Donald

May 2016: Manafort promoted to campaign chairman and chief strategist, taking command of the Trump campaign.

May 2016: Manafort promoted to campaign chairman and chief strategist, taking command of the Trump campaign.

Photo: Patrick T. Fallon / Bloomberg

Image 25 of 34

Image 26 of 34

April 2016: Papadopoulos meets with Russian national who he says offered "dirt" on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, including thousands of emails. Papadopoulos emails other members of Trump campaign about Russian offer of dirt on Clinton and offer for Trump to meet with Putin. Democratic National Committee becomes aware of the scope of the months-long intrusion into its email systems by hackers U.S. intelligence agencies later linked to the Russian government.

April 2016: Papadopoulos meets with Russian national who he says offered "dirt" on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, including thousands of emails. Papadopoulos emails other members of Trump

March 2016: Manafort joins Trump campaign as a volunteer consultant. George Papadopoulos is named one of five foreign policy advisers to the Trump campaign, and meets with people associated with the Russia government amid discussions to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin.

March 2016: Manafort joins Trump campaign as a volunteer consultant. George Papadopoulos is named one of five foreign policy advisers to the Trump campaign, and meets with people associated with the Russia

September 2015: The FBI contacts the Democratic National Committee's IT help desk, cautioning that at least one of its computers has been compromised by Russian hackers. A technician scans the system but fails to find evidence of the intrusion.

September 2015: The FBI contacts the Democratic National Committee's IT help desk, cautioning that at least one of its computers has been compromised by Russian hackers. A technician scans the system but fails

February 2014: Following months of violent clashes between protesters and police across Ukraine, Yanukovych flees Ukraine and enters exile in Russia. U.S. government later opens investigation into Manafort's foreign lobbying and political work.

February 2014: Following months of violent clashes between protesters and police across Ukraine, Yanukovych flees Ukraine and enters exile in Russia. U.S. government later opens investigation into Manafort's

February 2010: With the help of his Russian patrons and his American political consultants, Yanukovych is elected president of Ukraine.

February 2010: With the help of his Russian patrons and his American political consultants, Yanukovych is elected president of Ukraine.

Photo: AP

Image 33 of 34

2006: Paul Manafort and Rick Gates (left) begin work as consultants for the Party of Regions, a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine led by Victor Yanukovych, the country's former prime minister. Manafort is a veteran Republican political operative who worked on the U.S. presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole.

2006: Paul Manafort and Rick Gates (left) begin work as consultants for the Party of Regions, a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine led by Victor Yanukovych, the country's former prime minister. Manafort is

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government censored, withheld or said it couldn't find records sought by citizens, journalists and others more often last year than at any point in the past decade, according to an Associated Press analysis of new data.

The calculations cover eight months under President Donald Trump, the first hints about how his administration complies with the Freedom of Information Act.

The surge of people who sought records but ended up empty-handed was driven by the government saying more than ever it could not find a single page of requested files and asserting in other cases that it would be illegal under U.S. laws to release the information.

People who asked for records under the Freedom of Information Act received censored files or nothing in 78 percent of 823,222 requests, a record over the past decade. When it provided no records, the government said it could find no information related to the request in a little over half those cases.

It turned over everything requested in roughly one of every five FOIA requests, according to the AP analysis.

Records requests can take months — even years — to get fulfilled. Even then, the government censored documents in nearly two-thirds of cases when it turned over anything.

Now Playing:

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that President Trump's lawyers are seeking to offer an interview as a way to help Robert Mueller conclude part
of his Russia investigation.

Media: GeoBeats

The federal government also spent $40.6 million last year in legal fees defending its decisions to withhold federal files, also a record. That included the time when a U.S. judge ruled against the AP and other news organizations asking for details about who and how much the FBI paid to unlock the iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. When the government loses in court, it sometimes must pay the winner's attorney's fees. For example, the New York Times was awarded $51,910 from the CIA in May in a fight over records about chemical weapons in Iraq.

It was impossible, based on the government's own accounting, to determine whether researchers, journalists and others asked for records that did not actually exist or whether federal employees did not search hard enough before giving up. The government said it found nothing 180,924 times, an 18 percent increase over the previous year.

"Federal agencies are failing to take advantage of modern technology to store, locate and produce records in response to FOIA requests, and the public is losing out as a result," said Adam A. Marshall, the Knight Foundation litigation attorney at the Washington-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

He said citizens and others should try to precisely describe how they want filings cabinets, hard drives or email accounts searched, but "you shouldn't have to be an expert in records management just to submit a FOIA."

Related Stories

In other cases, the times the government said it would be illegal under other U.S. laws to release requested information nearly doubled to 63,749. Those laws include broad prohibitions against revealing details about U.S. intelligence activities or foreign governments, trade secrets, individual banking or tax records and more.

Many of those requests probably involved files related to the U.S. investigation into how Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election or the related grand jury investigations or about Trump's personal or business tax returns, said Kel McClanahan, a Washington lawyer who frequently sues the U.S. government for records. "How many people do you think asked for Trump's tax returns?" he asked.

A disturbing trend continued: In more than one-in-three cases, the government reversed itself when challenged and acknowledged that it had improperly tried to withhold pages. But people filed such appeals only 14,713 times, or about 4.3 percent of cases in which the government said it found records but held back some or all of the material.

The Trump administration, in a new report last week, noted that it received a record number of information requests last year. It said many agencies reduced their backlogs of overdue requests.

The administration also said it was directing federal agencies to improve the number of requests they process and do some more quickly.

Performance under the records law by the Trump administration has been a source of curiosity, since Trump has eschewed some of the common conventions of transparency. For example, the president has declined to release his personal tax returns or logs of official visitors to the White House, and ethics waivers granted to many of Trump's political appointees do not include details about their former or current corporate clients.

But Trump is personally more accessible to reporters asking questions than President Barack Obama, and he released as many details about his medical records as previous presidents.

The Freedom of Information Act figures, released Friday, cover the actions of 116 departments and agencies during the fiscal 2017, which ended Sept. 30. The highest number of requests went to the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture, along with the National Archives and Records Administration and Veterans Administration.

The administration released its figures ahead of Sunshine Week, when news organizations promote open government and freedom of information.

Under the records law, citizens and foreigners can compel the U.S. government to turn over copies of federal records for no or little cost. Anyone who seeks information through the law is generally supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy, or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas.

One of a package of stories marking Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of access to public information.